The practice of minimum fees applied to contracts, wills, estatesand other out of court work

For example, the minimum fee for administering an estate worth more than €170,860 was calculated as follows:

8458 + (
A-170,860) x 2.6 + (
DA x 2.6)

100 100

(Where A corresponds to the value of the estate and DA to the distributable amount)

Let’s take a simple example (with no complicated assumptions), where a lawyer has been appointed as Executor

to administer an estate, which simply includes only a property worth €1m, basically involving all the legalities to deal with the WILL and fundamentally obtaining probate and transferring the title deed to a beneficiary (let’s assume no admin costs for simplicity).

The operation of minimum fees in Cyprus utilised formulae for calculating lawyers’ fees irrespective of the time spent or the complexity of the matter. The minimum fee in the above example under the relevant formula would calculate at€56,000. In the UK for example, the cost to carry out this type of transaction would cost say, £2,000 (sterling).